12 comments:

ha ha they're good kids really.the point of the post is, it was really my fault for asking the wrong questions.eg i say "can you put the phone away" instead of just "put it away" a lot if i'm not careful.giving an option is just asking for it!

Subhan'allah...I wonder...o you teach n a mixed school ukhti? cause in a girls' school like mie, that rarely happens in set 1...although it seems quite frequent in the lower sets.by the way, which set do you teach?

One of the reasons I have all the outmost respect for teachers especially high school instructors. You guys, know how to tackle these rebelious minds and their sarcasm... You guys are so underpaid and deserve a salary higher than a circus act of people throwing hoops or hitting a ball with a racket. Reminded me of those highschool days when some of my classmates were smart aleks just like this student. Hugs ;)

Hehe.. yeah Hema you really have to give them orders/commands instead of asking questions, I learned that too!

Carimuslim, I like your comment that we "deserve a salary higher than a circus act of people throwing hoops or hitting a ball with a racket" and because of that, I think you're an amazing person and I don't even know you :D

We did a few sessions on how to react to these sort of situations in tecahing studies. One of my fave ways is to give options where the end result will be to your benifit. So for the putting away the phone it would be something along the lines of 'either put the phone away or give it to me to put away' Your giving a command and an option its suprising how well it can work. Oh and NEVER smile whilst saying and if you have a difficult student, after giving them the option/command turn away from them and address another student or carry on talking. This gives them time to 'choose' what they going to do and do it without having the eyes of the entire class on them.

If they still don't do it address them with something like 'come on slow couch, how long does it take you to choose what to do' (some thing friendly) again your stating its their choice follow this up with ur command/option again 'you either give it me or put it away yourself'

If after this they still don't do it you can happliy state that you gave them a choice, go on about how great you were for giving them the choice, how rude they are for carrying on even tho you had asked them to put it away twice - you'll know what degree to take this to basically your shaming them into putting it away. At the same time your showing your reasonable etc

mishy- don't worry you didn't miss much. just me waffling on and on and on..

snowdrops- i don't teach in a college.the boys in the post are all GCSE resits. to be honest, i get bored teaching set one students all the time..

carimuslimah- that's it, you are officially my favourite person. will you move to the UK and become the next prime minister or something.

liya- exactly- everything in that post was totally my fault. except for the comment about cleaning. he got a huge lecture about that.ymiss- thanks for the reminders- that brought back memories.

they are genuingly good kids really. most of the comments were said in a cheeky way to gain some laughs. i ask questions rather than give commands out of habit, but the way you phrase things really does make a huge difference.eg "put that away please" implies they have a choicewhereas"put that away,thank you" assumes compliance. i always try to reflect when the behaviour in a class goes wrong. it's easy to blame the students and think "typical teenagers" but teachers need to assume some responsibility too. i tracked a low ability set once, and they were little angles for one teacher and totally rebellious for another.